Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Real Oppression of Women Under Patriarchy

Go to any blog, message board or online magazine's comment section in which the topic regards the past system of Patriarchy, and the inevitable argument always gets put forth: that the past system was oppressive because it trapped innocent women and children in marriages to abusive, tyrannical men.

As bad as the current regime of feminist no-fault divorce-a-palooza and the ubiquity of single mother households becoming the primary makeup of the 21st century home, many women will acknowledge the injustices and drawbacks of the current dystopia, but still argue from the position that it is still an improvement over the dreaded oppression of Patriarchy's past.

Yet, when you take a step back and look at the big picture, what do we see when it comes to women, and their choice of sex partners and sperm donors for their offspring? Time and time again, under the current regime in which women have all the choices in mating and reproductive decisions, with the power of the State backing them up in whatever direction they choose...many, many women choose to remain or frequently return to violent partners over and over again.

It gives lie to the idea that freeing women from the constraints of Patriarchy would allow them to escape abusive spouses.

Browsing through the first two pages of those search results reveals one thing all the websites dealing with that topic ALL have in common: they all absolve the woman of any responsibility for her choices and offer rationalizations and excuses as to why she has no choice but return to her abuser over and over again. Low self esteem, societal dissaproval, emotionally still 'in love," manipulation by her abuser...blah, blah, blah.

Here's an idea: women who repeatedly return to an abusive man and continue to have sex with them and pop out children with them are sexually attracted to these abusive men because they are violent.

All of these excuses and explanations are rationalizations avoiding the dark truths of female's base sexual nature and attraction towards the dark triad of masculinity traits.

No matter how many times it's claimed, it's logically impossible to believe this notion that the majority of husbands and fathers in the bad old days were unjust tyrants abusing their wives and families with reckless abandon, deliberately hurting their spouses just because they could. If that were the case, and the vast majority of married men were unjust abusers, the feminist movement would have never ever gained society- wide traction. MEN had to vote to approve FEMALE suffrage. If all men under dastardly Patriarchy were hell bent on oppressing all of women-kind, suffrage, no-fault divorce and all the other aspects of today's feminist zeitgeist would have never come to pass.

Feminist gains were achieved with male compliance, apathy and acquiescence.

That's because while we may have a lot more "beta" males in society today due to our cultural programming that psychologically emasculates the majority of males than would naturally occur under a strictly traditional Patriarchal society, even back than, the majority of males were still "beta." They got married and their wives still ruled the roost in all but name. As I wrote over at Alte's:

For instance, my own grandparents….both grew up during the depression and had already had 4 children by the time the sexual revolution rolled around in the 60′s. There was a tyrant in the house..and it was certainly not my grandfather. My grandmother wore the pants. What she said, goes. Patriarchal oppression….HAH. My grandmother would’ve laughed at the idea that she was oppressed just because she was a SAHM and took my Grandfather’s last name.

The difference between back then and now, was divorce laws that favored men and the society-wide stigma against divorce meant men could beta-ize and their wives couldn't just up and leave them.

It has always been so, that most males in any human society will be mostly beta. Alpha's are always the select few, amongst the mass of average, beta males.

No, I do believe I've figured out the real meaning of oppression under Patriarchy.

The biggest oppression the majority of women experienced in the past was not abusive, asshole, Alpha thugs...it was being trapped in marriage to a contemptible Beta she had no sexual attraction towards. Now THAT that was some SERIOUS oppression from the female point of view.

Now that Patriarchy has been deconstructed and marginalized by the feminist movement, there is no longer any reason why a woman who got married and had children, and grew to despise her beta-ized husband, to have to stick with "'til death do us part."

Remember Roissy's Maxim #51? "For most women, five minutes of alpha is worth five years of beta."

That's under today's Matriarchal zeitgeist.

Now women can marry a beta, pop out some kids, eat, pray and than find an alpha to love for 5 minutes while she divorces the beta and locks him into years of indentured servitude via child support and alimony.

But under the bad old days of Patriarchy, if a woman settled for a beta, it really was "'til death do us part."

25 comments:

No matter how many times it's claimed, it's logistically impossible to believe this notion that the majority of husbands and fathers in the bad old days were unjust tyrants abusing their wives and families with reckless abandon, deliberately hurting their spouses just because they could. If that were the case, and the vast majority of married men were unjust abusers, the feminist movement would have never ever gained society- wide traction. MEN had to vote to approve FEMALE suffrage. If all men under dastardly Patriarchy were hell bent on oppressing all of women-kind, suffrage, no-fault divorce and all the other aspects of today's feminist zeitgeist would have never come to pass.

Not only is that certainly the case, but furthermore, if, hypothetically speaking, all women had been in such marriages, and yet stayed in them, then they would have been no different than the battered women we have today, who as you pointed out, stay, because they are attracted to such men - and thus such women would never have embraced feminism - because they'd be too busy making excuses for their thug husbands. (Now, my grandmother did suffer under an abusive husband, and she did end up leaving him; which admittedly is only one personal anecdote, but it does show that there were those who, even though they suffered social and economic consequences for it like my grandmother did, were willing to leave; nevertheless, this was quite rare, most men did not treat their wives like badboy thugs do.) No, like you say, all too many of men of the past were betas, who alas, being such, allowed feminism to come about...

Excellent post. I had figured that 'the bad old days' was about the lack of choice women had in terms of marriage prospects. That in order to survive they had to find a safe but boring Eric Foreman (beta) while forgoing the exciting but undependable Casey Kelso (alpha).

No wonder why they fought for all these 'freedoms', this way they have their cake and can eat it too.

"The biggest oppression the majority of women experienced in the past was not abusive, asshole, Alpha thugs...it was being trapped in marriage to a contemptible Beta she had no sexual attraction towards. "

Yup, it was not the monotony of the kitchen, but the ennui in the bedroom.Even rand’s super heroines loved to make a sammich for their alpha male. Dagny Taggart, humble cook and maid to the Great Galt.

And Betty Friedan was more of a nutcase than a housewife. Her husband's account of her violence against him show a woman in desperate need of some good pimp hand.

The women are not attracted to the violence itself. The women are attracted to the man's dominant personality, his confidence, his masculinity, his leadership, and his strength. The women will put up with the violence to be with a man who has those characteristics that I listed.

Keoni, I have thought this for a long time but I could not have expressed as well as you.

In my country, the Patriarchy (a matriarchy in disguise) lasted until the 80s and I could see the dynamics you describe in my parents, uncles and aunts.

My aunts and mother wore the pants in the relationship. They demanded and demanded and demanded from my beta father and uncles, they treated them with contempt and they were never satisfied.

Being a Catholic country, divorce was unthinkable (until recently, it was forbidden by law).

The best relationships were those where the wife was notably inferior to the husband.

Feminism was all about hypergamy. Divorcing your husband so you could "follow your bliss" to "eat, pray, love" alpha males. Being economically independent from beta males so you could chase alpha males and stay away from the betas.

I think in the generations that grew up in the 1930s and before, there were a much higher percentage of very masculine acting men than there are today. Most men where by some definitions betas in relative terms of sexual attractiveness to women, but I think far fewer betas back then seemed like pathetic and unappealing beta wusses then, because far fewer were. I think fewer men are in some foreign countries today too

Far more tended to be act and assume overall dominance over their wives, while delegating lots of smaller household things. But not things such as whether to move to another city to pursue a job opportunity, etc.

It’s widely remarked in the game and manospere’s that feminism has worked overdrive to feminize boy while masculinizing girls.

That means there was a time before second wave feminism became widely disseminated at universities and in the entertainment media and journalism, when men were more masculine and women more feminine in America, as the still are in e.g. Eastern Europe and Latin America. Lots of social norms supported and undergirded men having an overall leadership role in dating and in the family, and for women tending to defer to and help build up his male ego. This would naturally result in a higher percentage of women being more attracted to their more masculine husbands a number of years into marriage, than is the average case today.

Hi,This is completely off topic but I wanted to ask you a question concerning a problem that men don't really have to think about... cellulite! I just finished reading the Paleo Baby post and I was really interested in the transformations your wife went through when you took control over her diet so that she wouldn't eat anymore grain products. The big question is... did her cellulite disappear (assuming that she had a bit before when she was eating grains). The only way I am able to stay cellulite-free is by sticking to a diet called the Wai diet, I don't know if you've ever heard of it but here is the link: http://www.freeacnebook.com/

It is raw diet where you eat mostly fruit, olive oil, raw fish and raw eggs. The only thing is that it is extremely difficult to follow because you have to be eating constantly. According to Wai, cellulite is caused by "dirty" protein, in other words, protein that has been denatured by heat (cooking). Following this diet, my skin becomes like that of a baby. The only thing is that I'm unable to keep it up for more than a month. It's difficult because you have to keep your sugar levels stable by a a constantly eating fruit and balancing it with enough fat. I was wondering if I could achieve similar results by following a much easier paleo diet like the one you seem to be following, but I am unable to find this information anywhere. I was hoping you could tell me how it was for your wife.Thanks!